11 Facts About High School Dropout Rates

1. Every year, over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States alone. That’s a student every 26 seconds – or 7,000 a day.


2. About a quarter of high school freshmen fail to graduate from high school on time.


3. The U.S., which had one of the highest graduation rates of any developed country, now ranks 22^nd out of 27 developed countries.


4. The dropout rate has dropped 3 percent from 1990 to 2010 (12.1 percent to 7.4 percent).


5. The percentage of Latino students who graduate have significantly increased. In 2010, 71.4 percent received their diploma vs. the 61.4 percent in 2006.
   • Asian-American and white students are still far more likely to graduate than Latino and African-American students.
6. A high school dropout will earn $200,000 less than a high school graduate over his lifetime. And almost a million dollars less than a college graduate.
7. In the U.S., high school dropouts commit about 75 percent of crimes.
8. In 2010, 38 states had higher graduation rates. Vermont had the highest rate, with 91.4 percent graduating. And Nevada had the lowest with 57.8 percent of students graduating.


9. Almost 2,000 high schools across the U.S. graduate less than 60 percent of their students.


10. These “dropout factories” account for over half of the students who leave school every year.


11. 1 in 6 students attend a dropout factory. 1 in 3 minority students (32 percent) attend a dropout factory, compared to 8 percent of white students.

Know these terms about high school dropouts. GO

Sources: 

National Center for Education Statistics

Alliance for Excellent Education

Wall Street Journal

NPR

US Department of Education